The Elementals

by Michael McDowell

“To have a family is real strange,” said India thoughtfully. “All these people you wouldn’t have anything to do with except that they’re related to you.

Days at Beldame were so exquisitely dull and stuffy, so brightly illumined and so hot to the touch, that the quivers and fretwork of emotion were quite burned away.

Worry, clever thought, conversation all were crushed by the weight of the atmosphere.